While Wordpress is designed as a blogging tool, it can be used as a reliable back-end CMS. With the basic install of wordpress, plus a straight forward couple of edits to templates and a plugin or two and you have a content management system. A good CMS needs multi-user page editing, wordpress provides this in spades with its user management and its post and page creation system. It also makes it simple for non web savvy users to edit pages and post blogs.

Plugins

While wordpress could be used as a CMS out of the box a few plugins make the process much simpler. These are recommended as the basic install will buckle later on.

Firstly it needs to use the Static Front Page plugin, this brings whatever page is called ‘Home’ to the front page. This is where you then have an introduction rather than recent posts.

All sites should have a sitemap for getting on the search engines, and a plugin can automate this process. The Sitemap Generator for Wordpress does all the listing for everything posted within the system.

The possibilities of creating a fully dynamic site opens up with the plug-in PHP Exec plugin. This plug-in enables php within the contents of user’s posts, which with wordpress’s pages system produces instantly dynamic pages. However you need to trust your users or have strong limits on user levels.

Dont forget that there is a wealth of other plugins and unlimited help available at a touch of a button. I’ve found that many issues I have already have an answer through google, which makes troubleshooting an instant fix.

So why use wordpress as a content management system? If you want ease of use and flexibilty through plugins then wordpress beats other systems hands down. Remember for an almost limitless plugin directory visit the Wordpress Plugins site. Also check out Top 10 WordPress CMS Plugins for more plugins.